Design concept

Fedra Sans was designed as text fonts; it performs well in long passages of text, even at sizes as small as 5-6 pt, and some of the design decisions were in fact made to optimize the typefaces for small text use. Instead of extrapolating lighter versions of Fedra Sans for display use, we decided to specially design a new type family. This allowed us to change the spacing and kerning of the characters, based on the assumption that they would be used in larger sizes. The letter and word spacing is tighter, hanging numerals and currency symbols replaced with lining ones, the design of many characters modified and a large collection of titling ligatures were added. The main difference, however, is in the extreme weight of the fonts.

Fedra Sans Display contains a set of discretionary ligratures (about 800 of them), subscript and superscript capitals, and a special set of common preposition and articles in various languages (English, German, Spanish, Dutch, French) which forming more compact text titles.

All weights of Fedra Sans Display contains a set of discretionary ligatures and alternative characters. The ligatures include two-, three, and four-letter combos.

A set of common definite articles, indefinite articles and prepositions available in several major languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch) match the height of the capitals and can be combined in headlines to save room. They can be activated automatically as an OpenType feature (Contextual Alternates). A logo-like article ‘THE’ can be accessed simply by typing space + T + H + E + space.